Of Course, I Do Not Mention This As Any
Particular Advantage, But To Show The Great Difference In The
Amount Of Transactions, And Of Subjects Of Contention, In An Old
And A New Country.
The same may be said of the number of newspapers,
as indicative of commercial activity.
Two newspapers, representing
the two political parties, are well-supported in Belleville, both
by their subscribers, and the number of advertisements.
The mouth of the Moira River, which widens out at its junction
with the Bay of Quinte, is completely covered with saw-logs and
square timber of various kinds during the summer months. This river,
at Belleville, is often dammed up by confused piles of timber. No
sooner are these removed than its waters are covered over by vast
quantities of oak staves, which are floated down separately to
be rafted off like the squared lumber for the Quebec market.
The greater proportion of the saw-logs are, however, cut up for
exportation to the United States by the various saw-mills on the
river, or by a large steam saw-mill with twenty or thirty run of
saws, erected on a little island in the mouth of the river. Several
large schooners are constantly loading with sawed lumber, and there
are two or three steamboats always running between Belleville and
Kingston, carrying passengers to and fro, and generally heavily
laden with goods or produce. The Bay of Quinte offers more
than common facilities in the summer months for rapid and safe
communication with other places; and, in the winter time, being
but slightly affected by the current of the river Trent, it
affords excellent sleighing.
Large quantities of wheat and other farm produce are transported
over the ice to Belleville from the neighbouring county of Prince
Edward, which is an exceedingly prosperous agricultural settlement,
yielding wheat of the finest quality, and particularly excellent
cheese and butter. The scenery on the shores of Prince Edward is
exceedingly picturesque, and there are numerous wharfs at short
distances, from whence the farmers roll their barrels of flour and
other articles on board the steamers on their way to market. I have
seen no scenery in Upper Canada presenting the same variety and
beauty as that of the shores of Prince Edward in particular.
The peninsular situation of this county is its only
disadvantage - being out of the line of the land travel and of the
telegraphic communication which passes through Belleville. The
county of Prince Edward having nearly exhausted its exportation
lumber - the people are thus freed from the evils of a trade that
is always more or less demoralising in its tendency and can now
give their undivided attention to the cultivation of their farms.
Certain it is, that more quiet, industrious, and prosperous
settlers, are not to be found in the Province.
A few miles below Belleville, on the south side of the bay, is a
very remarkable natural curiosity, called "The Stone Mills." On the
summit of a table-land, rising abruptly several hundred feet above
the shore of the bay, there is a lake of considerable size and very
great depth, and which apparently receives a very inadequate supply
from the elevated land on which it is situated. The lake has no
natural outlet, and the common opinion is that it is unfathomable,
and that it is supplied with water by means of a subterranean
communication with Lake Huron, or some other lake at the same level.
This is, of course, extremely improbable, but there can be no doubt
of its great depth, and that it cannot be supplied from the Bay of
Quinte, so far beneath its level. As a small rivulet runs into this
lake from the flat ground in its vicinity, and as the soil of this
remarkable excavation, however it may have been originally formed,
is tenacious, I think we require no such improbable theory to
account for its existence. Availing himself of the convenient
position of this lake, a farmer in the neighbourhood erected a mill,
which gives its name to the lake, on the shore of the Bay of Quinte,
and which he supplied with water by making a deep cutting from the
lake to the edge of the precipice, from whence it is conveyed in
troughs to the mill.
There is a somewhat similar lake in the township of Sidney in the
county of Hastings, covering some hundred acres. This lake is also
of great depth, though situated on the summit of a range of high
hills, from whence it gets the name of the "Oak Hill Pond."
The Bay of Quinte abounds in excellent fish of various kinds,
affording excellent sport to those who are fond of fishing. When the
ice breaks up in the spring, immense shoals of pickerel commence
running up the Moira river, at Belleville, to spawn in the interior.
At that time a number of young men amuse themselves with spearing
them, standing on the flat rocks at the end of the bridge which
crosses the river They dart their spears into the rushing waters at
hap-hazard in the darkness, bringing up a large fish at every second
or third stroke. My eldest son, a youth of fifteen, sometimes caught
so many fish in this manner in two or three hours, that we had to
send a large wheelbarrow to fetch them home. Formerly, before so
many mills were erected, the fish swarmed in incredible numbers in
all our rivers and lakes.
In the back-woods there is excellent deer-hunting, and parties are
often formed for this purpose by the young men, who bring home whole
waggon-loads of venison.
While speaking of Belleville, I may mention, as one of its chief
advantages, the long period for which the sleighing continues in
this part of the country, when compared with other places on the
shore of Lake Ontario. Nearly the whole winter there is excellent
sleighing on the Bay of Quinte; and on the land we have weeks of
good sleighing for days in most other places.
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